THE LABOUR-SOCIALIST CANDIDATE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 127, 15 February 1918, Page 6

THE LABOUR-SOCIALIST CANDIDATE

MR. HOLLAND AT WADESTOWN. Mr. H. Holland, the Labour-Socialist candidate, addressed a fairly large audionce in the Pitt Street Church Schoolroom, AVadestown, last evening. Ho was given' a quiet hearing. The candidate devoted a largo part of his tim» to attacking the conscription law and appealing for the supuort of the Civil Servants. He said tfmt the increase in the cost of living must bo felt keenly by all the members of the public service. The Government, he said, had closed avenues of promotion by retaining in tho Departments men who had completed their forty years' service; it had violated a promise by postponing the reclassification until 1920, and ithad retained the law that made it an offence for public servants to cxercisn tho common right of citizenship by taking part in public affairs. The Government evidently regarded the Civil Servants as something loss than ordinary men. The Labour Party would remedy this state of affairs if given tho chance. After reciting grievances of postal officers in some detail, Holland said the proposal of the Labour Party was that public Departments should ho placed under the control of boards, at least half the members to represent the employees in each Department. He was sure that if_ the Post and Telegraph Officers' Association had a hand in the administration of tho Postal Department the conditions would be improved from every point of view. "Liberals and Reformers have made' common cause against the workers of this country." he said, "and you Civil Servants will have to join up with tho Labour PaHy. I am sure you are not satisfied with the treatment you aro receiving. Your remedy is to get into line with the, workers' organisations

,■ . . The wharf labourers are getting higher wages than you Civil Servantß at the present time,, and they desem nil they are getting." Referring to conscription, Mr. Holland asked the Government to state definitely whether or not it intended to take the married men compulsorily into tile Army. He suggested that the Ministers were afraid to conscript tho married men, and that it was intended to maintain reinforcements at a quota of something like 500 men a month by taking all the youths as they attained their twentieth year. The people of New Zealand would not stand for this arrangement. Conscription had never been necessary. If the Government had offered adequate wages, allowances, and pensions to the soldiers, it would have got as volunteers all tho men who wero in favour of going to the war. "It is not a good thing to send unwilling men to the war," said the candidate. "Napoleon tried that, and you know what happened to him at the Battle of Leipzic. That might happen again." The Dominion' had made a reference, he said, to unpleasant associations in connection with his career. He had lived a clean and honourable life, and ho was not ashamed of anything that he had done. Gaol was not a pleasant place, but if a man was sent there for no fault of his own he need not reproach himself. He did not believe lie would have been convicted at tho .time of the 1013 strike if the Crown had not possessed unfair powers in the selection of a jury. Mr. Holland attacked the "war profiteers," and said that the Labour Party accepted the Wellington North election as a national fight. If the defeat of Mr. Luke would mean the wrecking of the National Government, that was an additional reason for voting for the labour candidate. , " J „. ■V vote of thanks and confidence was moved at the clo*? of the speech and carried without dissent.